Ashanti Allston: LIGHT THAT BORDER-CROSSED FROM THE SOUTH

When: February 10 or 11
Where: ?
What: Ashanti Allston: "LIGHT THAT BORDER-CROSSED FROM THE SOUTH:
The Resurgence of Funky Liberation within the Babylonian Imperial Brain
This talk will focus on the impact of the Zapatista movement in Mexico on
People-of color self-determination movements above the so-called southern
US border. Why does their small "r" indigenous revolution challenge us
so deeply and give us reason to believe that our freedom dreams and sense
of dignity are the guides to changing the world?"

Ashanti Alston, Black Panther and long-time activist in Black
liberation movements, will report on recent developments in the
struggle for self determination and community autonomy currently
underway in both the African American and Latino communities. Drawing from
his own history in the black liberation movement in the United States,
Alston will examine the intersections and solidarity between these
communities as well as investigate the critical role of popular education
strategies for the Black Panthers and more recently the
Zapatista communities of Chiapas, Mexico. More recently, as a
member of Estacion Libre, an autonomous organization of people of
color in solidarity with the Zapatistas, Alston has been a prominent
activist in the decentralized, networked global resistance to
neoliberal structural adjustment as it manifests in the prison
industrial and military industrial complex.

Ashanti Alston is a Black Panther and ex-political prisoner who has served
on the board of the Institute for Anarchist Studies and
currently publishes the zine, "Anarchist Panther". He has spoken
widely on the Panthers and the history of Black Nationalist
movements, including as a lecturer at the Institute for Social
Ecology in Vermont. After studying the autonomous struggle of
Zapatista communities in Chiapas, he has linked his knowledge of
Black nationalism and indigenous autonomy to his anti-racist work
with such organizations as Critical Resistance, a national
organization committed to ending the Prison Industrial complex. His
academic interests include the Black Panther Party, History of the Black
Nationalist Movements, Black Anarchism and the Zapatista Rebellion.